Gad Gross

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Finally, there is an organization for freelancers run by
freelancers, and it could not come at a more opportune time. As anyone who has
been one knows, being a freelance conflict reporter, in particular, can be
tricky business.

At any given time over the past two years, as wars raged in
Libya and then Syria, and as other conflicts ground on in South Asia and sub-Saharan
Africa, a number of journalists have been held captive by a diverse array of forces,
from militants and rebels to criminals and paramilitaries. And at any given
time, a small handful of these cases--sometimes one or two, sometimes
more--have been purposely kept out of the news media. That is true today.

Kurdistan is different, as nearly every Iraqi Kurd I have
ever met has said. Far less violent than the rest of Iraq since the U.S.-led
invasion in 2003, the parts of the north controlled by the Kurdish Regional
Government have escaped the kind of sectarian unrest that continues to flare in
the south. But in recent months more than 150 Iraqi Kurdish journalists have
been injured or attacked, according to the local Metro
Center to Defend Journalists. One journalist was murdered three years ago
in Kirkuk after uncovering evidence of government corruption. But most of the journalists who find
themselves more recently under siege have been covering violent clashes
between the Kurdish security forces and protestors in Sulaymaniyah.